Monday, May 29. 2006

If you thought Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's voyage of discovery and the Battle of the Little Bighorn were about the only significant events in Montana's history, guess again.

For Memorial Day, The Billings Gazette asked historians and political-science professors from Montana colleges and universities to talk about some top moments in the state's history. Here's what they said:

Very interesting article for anybody interested in Montana history. Everything from Lewis and Clark to the 1972 Constitutional convention is weighed in on as significant events in Montana history. I would agree with all I read except the last one which indicated the "Buffalo Commons" was a significant event in Montana's history.

Land use and views on it have been changing for years and the whole "Buffalo Commons' thing had little to do with it. People learning and adapting to conditions as they are have seen to that. If you wanted a significant event on land use I think something better than the "Buffalo Commons" would be the Homestead Act or the government giving away millions of acres of ground to the railroads, which broke up parts of Montana into chunks to small for a family to make it on which, in the long run, lead to the whole "Buffalo Commons" idea.

Now, off the misplaced idea that the "Buffalo Commons" was significant, I would like to point out an item I say should be on the list. While it is a national issue, The Dawes Act of 1887 also has many effects on Montana and its people.

Background: Congressman Henry Dawes believed in the civilizing power of private property which lead him to sponsor this act. The purpose of this law was to "allot," the land on the Indian Reservations to the tribal members living on the reservations to give them property to farm on.

The many problems with this were the fact that the Government then never helped the Indians learn how to farm "their lands." The lands were also "allotted" with no thoughts to whether they would be productive farms or not. If your "allotment" was in the middle of a forest, it was not the governments problem. The biggest problem with this was after the "allotment' took place, the government then sold all land that was not allotted to white people so they could come in and lease the land from the Indians to provide them with an income. If the lands were for the Indians to farm, why did the white people need to come in and lease them?

Significance: Instead of leading the Indian people out of poverty, this only continued the cycle of Government abuses on the Indian People. Today, the conflicting trust lands, private lands, and Federal lands on the reservations still cause many jurisdictional problems. The continuing Cobell vs. Norton saga, where the Indian people are suing the government for mismanagement of trust accounts, is also a direct problem from the Dawes Act and is leaving the American taxpayers facing a billions of dollars in unpaid monies owed to the Indians.

The Dawes Act would be my contribution to this story, or maybe the winter of 1886-1887 and it's effect on the cattle industry in Montana and throughout the West. Do you have one that you feel was missed? Let me know.

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft. Winston Churchill